


A Little Tenderness

by StarMaamMke



Series: Oops Baby [3]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarMaamMke/pseuds/StarMaamMke
Summary: Bobby Hopper's fever has Jim on edge. Joyce provides a little comfort and understanding. Angst/Fluff/Smut a real Neapolitan Ice Cream cone of a one-stop.Set in Oops Baby!verse with a slight hint at a plot point that hasn't been addressed in Then We'll Come From the Shadows yet.





	A Little Tenderness

 

She knew it was going to be a another rough night the moment he walked through the front door. Jim - despite what most people believed - was ridiculously easy to read, at least to his wife. When he returned home from work there was usually a bounce to his step and anticipation shining in his eyes. His shifts were long, and the thought of returning home to his family was usually enough to sustain him through the monotony of heading up Hawkins’ finest. But some days, and on this particular day, he would drag himself into the house, his stormy gaze fixed on the floor as he wordlessly hung up his coat and disappeared into his office in the basement.

To be honest, Joyce was more than a  little annoyed at him for picking today of all days to disappear into the bowels of their home; Bobby had been running a fever, and Joyce had been up all of the previous night caring for the toddler, as well as staying home from work. She’d scarcely had time to draw breath, let alone close her eyes. She was mindful of the fact that Jim had been at work all day, but since there had been no news of robberies, murders or even petty crimes on the local news, she was fairly confident that he had played glorified desk jockey for the entirety of his shift.

Thankfully, Bobby’s fever had broken around 3 in the morning, but he was still congested, cranky, overtired and needy. When Jim returned home, Joyce was on the couch, allowing herself a little time to catch up on a long-neglected paperback as the boy slept at her side. Jim barely paused to even look at the Bobby, and that’s when something occurred to Joyce:

Jim’s foul mood had begun when Bobby got sick. It was gradual - something that began as a skittish, deer-in-the-headlights reaction when the boy’s symptoms first showed, and evolved into stormy silence and full-on avoidance. Illness wasn’t exactly uncommon in the household, especially when Jonathan and Kali still lived at home - one person would catch a cold and it would whip through the house like a strong wind… but it was never anything serious; in fact, Bobby had been almost unnaturally healthy up until this point. No small feat for a toddler - especially when his mother and his  older brothers had been notoriously colicky babies.

Jim was scared out of his mind.

Joyce heaved a sigh and kissed her son’s clammy forehead before getting up to follow Jim into the basement. If he wasn’t going to ask how Bobby was doing, she’d tell him herself. It hadn’t been a bad fever, nothing to set the alarm bells going - just a run-of-the-mill, low-grade fever that Joyce had been sure to carefully monitor. A few degrees higher, and she would have taken him into the Emergency Room, but it never came to that.

She knocked on the door to his office, tapping her foot and shooting an impatient look at the 10-pointer mounted on the wall adjacent to the pool table. The taxidermied trophy stared back apathetically through marble eyes. After what felt like an eternal while, Jim opened the door to his office. His eyes appeared heavy, tired and suspiciously damp, and the corners of his mouth drooped slightly downwards. Not a scowl or a frown… just sad.

“Hey,” he greeted flatly, his eyes not meeting hers. Joyce reached out a hand and cupped one side of his face, pulling his gaze to her.

“He’s going to be alright, Hopper.”

Jim covered her hand with his and gently removed it from his cheek, guiding it back to her side before releasing it. “Thanks for that.” He sounded anything but thankful. Joyce felt a sharp dart of irritation begin to puncture the patience she had mustered up to confront him.

“Well then. I’m exhausted, so you all can eat leftovers tonight,” she announced before leaving him to his brooding.

Joyce put Bobby into his room, tucking him in carefully and turning on the baby monitor before grabbing her book and barricading herself in the master bedroom. It was barely 8:00 p.m. but her eyes were heavy and her body was aching with exhaustion and annoyance. She fell into a deep slumber after about 15 minutes of reading the same paragraph over and over again, only to be woken several hours later by the sound of muffled sobbing. She turned to face Jim’s side of the bed. He was awake with his face pressed into his pillow, his shoulders shaking with grief.

“Hop,” Joyce whispered, reaching over to place a comforting hand between his shoulder blades. She rubbed little circles around the tense flesh, scooting over so she could whisper soothing nonsense against his ear. “Baby, I’m here and Bobby is going to be his old self in the morning. You don’t have to–”

“I checked on him. His still sleeping and I stood there and watched him. I had - I had to make sure he was breathing, because you never know, right? God, he’s so… he’s so fucking little, Joyce. He’s this tiny, innocent thing and if something happened and he was gone I wouldn’t…”

“I wouldn’t survive it either, Jim,” Joyce replied softly, moving her hand to the back of his head to focus her gentle attention to his thinning blonde hair.

“No, but you would,” was Jim’s muffled reply. He turned his head towards her, she could see his eyes shining with tears, even in the darkness. “You’re so much stronger than the rest of us, always have been. You’d survive, but me - after Sara and after what happened with you and Brenner, and then giving birth to Bobby, I couldn’t. Sara died, and you almost died–”

Joyce cut him off by brushing her lips against his - a featherlight touch to remind him that she was still there, that the black hole hadn’t swallowed her up… that it simply didn’t exist. She gave an inch, and he took a mile, hooking an arm over her side and dragging her towards him; Jim rolled onto his back so she was atop him, one hand cupping her face while the other rested on the small of her back - his kisses deep and desperate as he clung to her. Joyce moaned when his tongue slipped into her mouth, brushing the sensitive roof of it with the tip.

“I love you,” she whispered as his nibbled on her ear lobe and the side of her neck. He echoed the sentiment, repeating it like a mantra as his hands wandered to her buttocks, grasping it tight before moving to her sides. His hands were aimless, but not quite fumbling; Joyce felt a fire ignite under her skin everywhere they roamed.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured as she moved to a sitting position and pulled her cotton chemise over her head, tossing it across the room. She thought he was apologizing because he wanted to hit the brakes on their current activity, but the moment her top came off, Jim was pulling himself to a sitting position, his back against the headboard as she settled into his lap, rotating her hips against the hardness tenting his boxers.

“What’s there to be sorry about, Hop?” Joyce gasped as his lips closed around one of her taut nipples; he rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger. The ache between her thighs went from dull to sharp as heat pooled at the crux.

“I’m no good with sickness and sick kids, and you should be catching up on sleep not - ah!” He hissed as Joyce put her hand between them to squeeze his turgid length.

“We aren’t talking about that right now,” she scolded, rising to tug her sleep shorts down and kick them towards the end of the bed before removing his boxers. Without another word she settled onto his cock, gasping as he filled her completely.

“Okay… God you feel so fantastic,” Jim grunted, cupping her left buttock with one hand and her right shoulder with the other, anchoring her as their hips rose and fell in a familiar, comforting rhythm. “You feel amazing like this, Joyce.”

Joyce was too awash with sensation to give him a proper response; her lips brushed against his cheek, the side of his neck, the tip of his nose, and back to his neck before she buried her face in the crook of it to muffle her cries as he brought her to a shattering completion. He muttered something encouraging as she kept up with his pace, despite the tremors that tore through her body from the strength of her orgasm. She was beautiful, wonderful, so tight, and the best lay he’s ever had and he was so very, very close so please come again - and she did manage to reach a second peak before he threw his head back, gasping and grunting as he lost control within her depths. She removed herself from him once she ascertained that she could move without feeling dizzy, and snuggled firmly at his side.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, pulling one of her hands to his lips and peppering the back of it with kisses.

“No need,” she murmured sleeping, pulling her hand away so she could stroke his chest as she drifted off once more.


End file.
